Mexico president calls conservationist’s death ‘regrettable’

Lopez Obrador raised criminality surrounding illegal logging. “It’s tied to criminal organizations and we’re working on this,” he said. (File photo: Andrés Manuel López Obrador/Facebook)

MEXICO CITY — President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday called the death of a rural leader who fought to conserve the monarch butterfly’s wintering grounds “regrettable” and “painful,” a day after his body was found in Mexico’s Michoacan state.

Homero Gomez Gonzalez’s relatives had reported him missing Jan. 14. He was last seen the evening before at a traditional celebration.

His body was found in a small agricultural reservoir in Ocampo, said Michoacan prosecutor Adrian Lopez Solis. The body of water was approximately 32 feet square and 20 feet deep, but only about half full of water. It was located on an adjoining property to where Gomez Gonzalez was last seen at the party.

An initial review of Gomez’s body showed no signs of trauma, Lopez Solis said at a news conference Wednesday. An autopsy was being performed to determine the cause of death.

The prosecutor said Gomez’s relatives had received a ransom call demanding money, but their investigation determined it was not credible and just an attempt to extort money.

“It’s part of what leads us to apply ourselves more every day to guarantee peace and tranquility in the country,” Lopez Obrador said. There were 35,588 homicides in Mexico in 2019, a new record, but a total that rose at a lower annual rate than recent years.

Authorities have not provided a cause of death or a motive, but activists have said it could be related to disputes over illegal logging, water or income from visitors’ fees to the El Rosario butterfly reserve. Gomez Gonzalez was the head of the reserve’s management council.

Lopez Obrador raised criminality surrounding illegal logging. “It’s tied to criminal organizations and we’re working on this,” he said.

Gomez Gonzalez was a former communal land officer who led efforts to preserve the pine and fir mountaintop forests where the butterflies spend the winter.

Millions of monarchs come to the forests of Michoacan and other areas after making the 3,400-mile (5,500-kilometre) migration from the United States and Canada. They need healthy tree cover to protect them from rain and cold weather.

Mexico has clamped down on illegal logging, which was once a major threat to the reserves but which has fallen to about one-third last year’s level. But there have been reports of increased “salvage” logging of supposedly sick trees.

Orley Taylor, a, ecology professor at the University of Kansas and director of Monarch Watch, said it wasn’t immediately clear what impact Gomez Gonzalez’s death would have on conservation efforts in the reserve.

“There are increasing pressures on the forest from both the illegal loggers and the avocado growers and possibly the gangs that extort protection from various parties in the region,” Taylor said. “This dynamic is widely known, but how to deal with these threats to the forests, residents and monarchs will be a challenge for the (Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve), its residents and local and regional authorities.

International organizations have drawn attention to attacks on environmental activists and conservationists in Mexico in recent years.

London-based Global Witness counted 15 killings of environmental activists in Mexico in 2017 and 14 in 2018. In an October 2019 report, Amnesty International said that 12 had been killed in the first nine months of that year.